


Favorite Song

by micehell



Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Genre: Drama, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-03-26
Updated: 2006-03-26
Packaged: 2017-11-12 02:27:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/485667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/micehell/pseuds/micehell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Greg was five, his favorite song was Rubber Ducky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Favorite Song

He let the soothing cadence fill him, matched the swaying motion of his body to its rhythm.

:::

When Greg was five, his favorite song was Rubber Ducky. He played it on his little kid-sized turntable with the broken automatic start, five-year-old hands moving with exaggerated care so as not to scratch the record. Of course he wound up scratching it anyway, playing the 45 until it was unrecognizable as a song and his mother threw it away. He cried that day, but then his mother gave him some ice cream and promised to replace the record.

She never actually did, but eventually Greg found another favorite song.

:::

Arms held him tight as he was danced backwards down the hall, comforting lyrics soft in his ears, relaxing him, and he lost himself in the sensation, let his body move, be moved, as it would.

:::

When Greg was ten, he traded with Jerry, the kid from next door, to get the _Frankenchrist_ album. The version with The Poster. Jerry had managed to blackmail it away from his older brother (and Greg hadn't been quite sure what a blowjob was, or why someone could be blackmailed for doing it to the captain of the football team, but he'd just nodded his head, as suave and worldly-wise as he could fake), but he'd agreed to give it to Greg in exchange for doing Jerry's math homework for the next two months.

Greg decided it was well worth the price after he'd invited Sam and Josh over to listen to it. They were all in chess club together, but the two boys were older, and seemed impossibly cool to Greg's, admittedly nerdy, eyes. But as they sat on his bed, ogling the infamous penis picture (which Greg thought was weird looking, but he wasn't going to admit it) and listening to the album (Greg actually liked _Hunting High and Low_ more, but he wasn't going to admit that either), laughing and talking and comfortable around Greg as far too many people weren't, Greg knew that almost any price would seem worth it to feel accepted like this. And when he thought about it, _MTV Get Off the Air_ might just be his favorite song ever.

:::

The low, comforting song followed him all the way to the shower, blending with the sound of clothes hitting the floor, the sound of water raining down, and the careful hands moving over him danced to the tune as well.

:::

When Greg was twenty-five, he went home for Christmas. He'd tried to avoid it, knowing how his parents were at the best of times, and the holidays were never the best of times at their house. But even though he was low man on the totem pole at the lab, he'd gotten 'lucky' with the schedule, and had wound up booked on his mother's guilt trip. Which is why he was sitting there on Christmas morning, thinking that there wasn't enough coffee in the world to make the experience anything but the trip through one of the levels of hell that it was.

Then his parents finished their traditional pre-gift distribution fight and moved on to the just as traditional during-gift distribution fight, with his father handing things out in the lulls between the shouting. The first gift was for Greg, from his father, and obviously a CD. Looking at the expectant face in front of him, Greg schooled his own face carefully, making sure he was ready to fake love for whatever it was that his father thought he'd listen to. He made himself think of a worst-case scenario (Celine Dion) just so he'd be prepared for anything, but as he tore off the paper, exposing the CD's gruesome cover, with its roughly imaged crucifixtion, Greg knew that he hadn't prepared enough.

What he thought of the gift was certainly clear on his face, his wide smile a mix of pleasure and surprise. Greg hugged his father, dancing him around the tree and babbling his thanks over his father's startled amusement and his mother's horrified objection, neither of them quite able to believe that his father had bought him _Holy Wood_ for Christmas.

After they were done opening the rest of the gifts, he left the two of them to their traditional post-gift opening fight, and went back to his room to listen his CD, happy with the concrete proof that his father actually did listen to him sometimes. As _Fight Song_ drowned out the argument still raging below, Greg decided that it was his favorite song ever.

:::

After the quick tempo of the water stopped, the song slowed as hands and cloth slid along his body, soft and gentle and feeling like it was seeping into his skin.

Arms around him again, leading, and he followed their pull, their push, down, soft bed at his back, hard body moving along beside him.

:::

When Greg was thirty, he'd had a really bad day at work. They'd been sent out to a construction site, where the unusual amount of rain that Vegas had been experiencing had turned up something more than the construction crew had expected; a grave. The scene had been hell to work, as pretty much the entire crew had been all over it, churning the muddy ground into a criminalist's nightmare. Besides the difficulty in extracting the body and in finding any usable evidence, the mud also made it hard to tell if the body had been there before the ground breaking had been done or after. Between the state of decay, and how long the construction work had been going on, it had been too close to tell without more evidence, which they hadn't had a lot of luck in finding.

When Sara was driving him home from the hospital, long after their shift should have been over, she told Greg that the construction foreman had been happy that they'd uncovered the sinkhole when they did. It had been deep and wide beneath the disguising layer of what had been hard-packed earth before the rains had started. It had also been just beyond the grave, next in line to be worked on, and the foreman had been thankful that none of the pieces of very heavy machinery had fallen through instead of the relatively very light Greg, as it could have caused a lot more damage than a sprained wrist and some cuts and bruises.

Greg, tired and muddy, his body still expecting the ground to give away under his feet - again - and with his wrist still hurting even after the drugs, hadn't felt all that thankful himself.

After Sara had dropped him off at home, all he'd been thinking about was coffee, a shower, and sleep, and he'd been trying to decide on which order he wanted them in.

But the decision had been taken away by the cup of coffee that greeted him when he walked into his apartment, a tiny wisp of steam, barely visible, rising above it as Gil put it in his hand. It was perfect, still warm but not too hot, and Gil must have been waiting, looking out the window for Greg to come home. Looking out for him.

Greg drank it down in a three quick gulps, wanting it to warm the chill that the damp rain and sharp pain had left in him, wanting it to give him enough energy to collapse.

The empty cup was taken from his hands, laid on the little table in the entryway instead of the sink, and, wow, Greg was obviously having a bad influence on Gil, but he didn't care as warm arms held him, and warm breath ghosted across his ear.

"Just relax. I'll handle everything. All you need to do is let me."

Greg hummed his approval, happy to let Gil do whatever he wanted. He let Gil lead him down the hall to the bath. Let him carefully strip off clothes nearly stiff with dried mud. Let him get him in the shower, wash his hair, his body, his bad mood right down the drain, all while the litany of mindless yet comforting words continued.

Between the heat of the coffee, the heat of the shower, and the heat of the body beside him, Greg felt like he was melting, beyond tired, but happy to drown in it. He was so relaxed he could barely move as he was dried, led across to the bedroom, put to bed. But he could still hear that voice telling him that everything was all right.

Gil pulled the covers over them both, spooned up behind him, his "Go to sleep now" a fading song, Greg's favorite one ever, as he did just that.

/story


End file.
